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Google Spreadsheets and Python

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51–60 of 143 posts

Re: Google Spreadsheets and Python

#52
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the fastest growing productivity app of the year (I read somewhere based on a metric I cannot recall). I didn't realize they had an API. I just looked it up and the documentation is so good it makes me tear up. The trick with the documentation is that it lets you pick one of your own databases and it then makes all the examples relevant to that database! Why doesn't everyone do that?

I'm actually a bit disappointed by their API as it stands at the moment. Say for example you want to retrieve a record with a bunch of nested records in one go. Currently you have to do that by pulling the first record, then looping through the array of nested IDs for the other records and retrieving each of them in turn. I want to be able to say "get me back record 56 and all of the linked records in a single reques…

Cofounder of Airtable here, I hear you and that's on the roadmap :).

Re: Google Spreadsheets and Python

#53
Like another commenter said, the built-in Apps Script is pretty powerful as it is that it could probably handle requirements more easily and portably.

For example, I've created a simple Apps Script for a Google Spreadsheets that uses OAuth to sync the list of client accounts from QuickBooks Online allowing us to keep track of more structured notes and segmentation, which QBO is still sorely lacking. The sync allows someone to easily update the spreadsheet with any new clients not in the spreadsheet.

However, if I was going to be doing any in-depth calculations and/or a lot of data then I'd probably go the same route with using Python externally.

Forgot to mention: The only thing I'm wary of, and have seen other comments in other threads about, is using it for anything more crucial like a core Excel/Access app because of the potential future change that'll break things.

Re: Google Spreadsheets and Python

#54

A friend who works at the Dallas Animal Shelter (a non-profit) asked me to help automate their process of generating reports from data gathered via Google Forms, which they were doing by hand every month... As a developer who is used to high technical investment into complex systems, I had to take a completely different approach to storing their information. Google Forms + Spreadsheet + Python works perfectly for use…

Need to dump a SQL query into a spreadsheet? That's what I made the script below for. Runs now on a cron job and now I have a makeshift analytics platform :)

http://pastebin.com/ACwqc5um

Re: Google Spreadsheets and Python

#55

I love Google Sheets. It is so much more powerful than 99.9% of the users appreciate. Here is how I use it at my day job as head of PM at New Relic: - Fetch deals closed and lost hourly from Salesforce - Fetch for each of our 14k+ paid accounts usage metrics using our Insights product - Pull both items into a nice color-coded business dashboard that is near realtime - Send said dashboard out as a PDF to a bunch of st…

Ever since I learned R and Python, I have dumped Excel. All my heavy lifting is done in a proper programming language, and for all the spreadsheet things that I need, Google Sheets is perfect. There's also something pretty magical about the sharing functionality when two people work on a document at the same time. Not to mention that all my sheets are a browser shortcut away, anywhere.

Re: Google Spreadsheets and Python

#56
post #13
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen AirTable? It's definitely the best modern alternative to Access I've seen - easy to create tables, great web UI and a phenomenal iOS mobile app. https://www.airtable.com

Why are the row limits so tight?! 1200 rows for the free tier, and only 5000 rows for the first paid tier! That's crazy low, given that Google Sheets gives you 200,000 cells, or 10,000 20-column rows, for free. EDIT: That was from 2009. The current limit is 2,000,000 cells per sheet: https://support.google.com/drive/answer/37603?hl=en

Probably because they are in business to make money? Customers whose first priority is cost usually aren't good customers.

Re: Google Spreadsheets and Python

#57
We use google spreadsheets and gspead/Python for analysis of our AdWords. The AdWords api is a PITA and so we just have a sceduled export to a google spreadsheet that we can then easily access. Works very well!

Re: Google Spreadsheets and Python

#58
Google Forms got a big re-do in the fairly recent past and it's an excellent product. My partner uses it a lot and she calls the results her "apps" becaues they are saved to her homescreen on iOS. She has some pretty sophisticated forms going because there's a "Go to section based on answer" feature that lets you build conditions.

If you haven't checked it out in a while it's worth a shot.

Re: Google Spreadsheets and Python

#59

I think there's a bit of a gap in the software ecosystem today in that there's no tool that lets semi-technical people like myself create simple applications, e.g. to read and write to databases. Bit like MS Access used to do. Google Spreadsheets actually goes a long way (I've done some stuff using the IF function etc. in it), but obviously has its limits. So combining it with Python sounds interesting. Not sure if i…

I think there's a bit of a gap in the software ecosystem today in that there's no tool that lets semi-technical people like myself create simple applications

Google App Maker?

https://blog.google/products/g-suite/customize-your-g-suite-...

Re: Google Spreadsheets and Python

#60

A friend who works at the Dallas Animal Shelter (a non-profit) asked me to help automate their process of generating reports from data gathered via Google Forms, which they were doing by hand every month... As a developer who is used to high technical investment into complex systems, I had to take a completely different approach to storing their information. Google Forms + Spreadsheet + Python works perfectly for use…

Really curious in the "low" technical investment answer: where/how does the Python end of this system get run?
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